Back to blogging

Its been almost 1.5 years since I have done any regular blogging other than a few posts here and there. Starting off once again. Lets me see if I can sustain it this time:) 2009 was the most testing year in my life so far. I guess the only one, life had been on a roll otherwise. I lived a different life in this one year. It was longer than a lifetime. But it has left me rock solid strong. And ofcourse has given me a deeper understanding of life and everything.

I am living in Chandigarh most of the time. 276/II,Sector-15A. A very pretty site from the vehra (terrace). Infact a terrace is the best part of a house. You get to be with the open sky, which brings an amazing kind of vastness in the consciousness. The back of the house has a ground big enough to play cricket with fielding placed on all sides and the mango tree acting as the stumps in the centre!
Behind the ground is DAV school which adds to the fresh site of school children running around raising dust in their playground bordered by Ashoka trees! And further into the distant horizon is visible the Shivalik mountain range,  kasauli hills more precisely. Orange sun rising from behind the trees, birds flocking in all directions, fighter jets creating a straight daunting white trail in morning sky is a daily delight. No other city in the plains can get you this close to nature, none that I know of atleast. Many a times I sleep on the terrace under the night sky! SaptRishi and other constellations winking at you on a clear night. I miss the trees that were in the front of the house though. City MC got them cut off for road widening. I managed to get the media on the spot, involved other NGOs, created enough noise to have them stop it for the rest of the sector until a proper enquiry is done. But my trees are gone. Neighbours wanted them cut to avoid cleaning their homes of the tree-dirt and to comfortably park their cars:( The house had become unlivable after the trees were axed. Temperature shot up by atleast 5 degrees, and rooms lost all their coolness. Now just curtains and closed doors save the rooms from the harsh afternoons. The natural ecosystem has now adjusted to the sudden loss of two huge trees. For atleast a few days after the cutting all the birds had also vanished. Homeless birds and squirrels must have shifted to the nearby trees as they are visible again:) We need more stringent policies about tree cutting and road widening.